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Traister named new associate dean in CAS

Barbara Traister succeeds Stephen Cutcliffe as associate dean for research and graduate studies for the College of Arts and Sciences.

Barbara H. Traister, professor of English at Lehigh for the past 33 years, has been named the associate dean for research and graduate studies for the university’s College of Arts and Sciences.

Traister will succeed Stephen H. Cutcliffe, professor of history and director of the Science, Technology and Society program, who served in that position since 2004.

“Barbara is keenly aware of the importance of graduate education to the College's educational and research mission,” says Anne Meltzer, the Herbert J. and Ann L. Siegel Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “She will be an active advocate for our existing graduate programs, helping to promote and improve them.”

In her new role, Traister says she hopes to raise the profile of graduate studies both within the university and with external audiences.

One of her first challenges will involve the forthcoming review of doctoral programs conducted by the National Research Council. As with previous efforts in 1983 and 1995, the new NRC study is designed to help universities improve the quality of these programs, enhance the nation’s overall research capacity, and provide potential students and the public with accessible information on doctoral programs nationwide.

“I think the excellence of some of our graduate programs is a well-kept secret,” says Traister, who lectures and writes about the literature of 16th and 17th century England, particularly about Shakespeare and his contemporary dramatists. Her other interests include contemporary drama, adolescent literature, and literature about medicine and magic.

Traister has authored numerous articles on early modern drama, medicine, and magic, and has served as scholar in residence at College of Physicians of Philadelphia and at the Medical College of Pennsylvania, where she taught courses in medical literature for a number of years.

She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Colby College, and a Masters in Philosophy and Ph.D. from Yale University. She taught for a short time in the Midwest at Kalamazoo College.

Her publications include Heavenly Necromancers: The Magician in English Renaissance Drama (Missouri), and The Notorious Astrological Physician of London: Works and Days of Simon Forman (Chicago).

Most recently, she authored Troilus and Cressida, All’s Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure: An Annotated Bibliography of Shakespeare Studies 1662–2004 (Pegasus Shakespeare Bibliographies, 2005).

Traister was a 2004 recipient of the Hillman Award, which recognizes excellence in teaching, research, and advancing the interests of the university. She was also the first recipient, along with Rosemary Mundhenk, of Lehigh’s Junior Award for Distinguished Teaching.

She has held fellowships from the NEH, the Rockefeller Foundation, ACLS, and the Folger Shakespeare Library.